The Impossible Knife of Memory

Title - The Impossible Knife of Memory

Author - Laurie Halse Anderson

Genre - YA

Summary -

Hayley Rose Kincain and her father have finally settled down in the town Andy, her father, grew up in as a young man after years on the road. Hayley is a smart young girl, gifted even, but her anger and bitterness at the adults and people around her hold her back. A bitterness stemming from the treatment given to her father and the disappointments that life itself have brought her way.

"...I shrugged again. Dad rarely talked about growing up in Belmont, but I wasn't about to let her know that. The first time we me, Benedetti told me that I could trust her and tell her anything. People who have to announce that they are trustworthy deserve to be lied to..."

Hayley and Andy have been on the road for years, driving eighteen wheelers and home schooling as best they can. With her mother and grandmother passed on they had no one else. Hayley just wanted to be with her father and Andy was running from the demons of his service to his country. Together they get through the dark times as best they can. But like with most things, eventually they can only run for so long as the demons catch up with Andy and he tries to drive them away with drugs and alcohol. Hayley does her best to help her father but the darkness of his dreams.

"...The old men take us there. A tiny hand, stained with blood and dust, pokes out of the rubble. The old men shout at us.

"What are they saying?" I ask.

"We got the wrong house," the interpreter says.

We blew up a house filled with children and mothers and toothless grandmothers. The insurgent house sits empty, a stone's throw away.

The ancient men yell at me and shake their fists.

I understand every word they say..."

Compounding their lives is Hayley's own distrust of everyone, young and old alike. Doing the best she can, she believes that she alone can help and save her father. But the weight of the guilt Andy carries is too large for the both of them as they begin to understand that they cannot carry it alone. Together, somehow, they must find a way to save one another.

Review -

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I picked up my copy at the Tucson Festival of Books at an author signing. I found the topic intriguing and the story itself is well written. I simply had a tough time liking the main character. Hayley. But in all fairness, she comes by her difficult and nasty attitude through experience and pain. It is only until later in the book, as layers of Andy and Hayley's lives are peeled away do you begin to understand her.

I do want to commend and point out that Anderson does a wonderful job of not holding back when it comes to the pain and suffering that Andy is going through with his post traumatic stress. Nor the impact it has on his relationships and on the life of his teenage daughter as she tries to hold it all together. This realism is something that is missing from much of today's Young Adult fiction and Anderson should be recognized for bringing such a difficult topic to bear with strong writing and beautiful prose.

The Impossible Knife of Memory is a powerful novel of how war and its aftermath continues to take casualties long after the shots are fired.

A good read.